


Slowly and then all at once

by colazitron



Series: Fic Advent 2012 [8]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One moment they're back home in London all set to relax, the next the zombie apocalypse breaks out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slowly and then all at once

Harry's entertained the idea of being a doctor once. He quickly gave up on the notion once he realised how much he'd have to deal with the inner workings of the human body. It's not that he doesn't find it fascinating - he does - and he thinks he probably could cut up a person and poke around inside of them, it's just that he doesn't think he'd like where his head would go. He can't poke around inside a person, but he can poke around inside a body. It's a matter of making people into bodies in his head and he doesn't want to do that. So, no medical degree for Harry Styles, thank you.

Considering he never wanted to, he's seen the insides of people far too much in the past weeks.

\---

He laughs to himself sometimes when he remembers that John Green quote. "I fell in love with you like I fell asleep; slowly and then all at once" or however it goes. Turns out that's not only true of falling asleep or in love - it's true of a zombie outbreak as well. Obviously the disease must've come from somewhere and it must've been around for a bit before it got to other people. Diseases don't just pop up from one day to the next. They show up and spread a bit and then they hit critical mass infection or something. And that's when it happens all at once.

One day they're coming back from the US leg of their tour and the next all the planes are grounded, airports are quarantine zones and no one's allowed to leave London without going through extensive checks at one of the five quarantine exits. They say they're doing the same in Cardiff and Manchester and Edinburgh and Harry would laugh about how navigating fan girls taught him how to navigate a mass outbreak of panic, if he weren't dead terrified himself.

Apparently there's a disease that blocks some recipients of some hormone in your brain and apparently that hormone is all that's keeping you human. They tested it on some rats or something. The good news is that this is old news to the scientific community and the best of them are currently working on perfecting the antidote because apparently the world actually has a zombie apocalypse contingency plan. The bad news is that they don't have the antidote yet, don't know how long it'll be till then (could be years, really) and that these zombies aren't classic zombies. They're not dead people stumbling clumsy amok that you can hit with a golf club and feel okay about. They're sick, confused people who are literally incapable of acting like people at the moment. So the only thing you can do is stay away from them and run.

\---

They always knew Louis was their unofficial leader but this situation is almost comical in how much it brings out the ... well, Harry doesn't want to say "warrior", but it seems the only appropriate term so... the warrior in him. He makes them all dress in t-shirts and skinny jeans because tight clothing gives you agility _what did you think why superheroes wear spandex? Or gymnasts?_ and put on leather jackets and gloves. They're all in their comfiest, most solid trainers and transferred their most important phone numbers onto old Nokia phones they got the first day the quarantine was announced because those things survive a lot of being tossed around and their batteries run longer. They keep one of their smart phones and a few chargers around to be able to always get online or listen to radio for info and then they follow instruction.

The people of London are all asked to congregate to quarantine centres to be tested. It's all more like safety precautions at that point. They call their mums and tell them not to worry, that they're safe and following orders and being good boys and they'll all see each other soon, surely. The process is slow though. Blood tests have to be taken and the results take hours to days, the labs completely understaffed and overloaded. It's a bit like a giant sleepover, the way the military rolls out sleeping bags by the thousands in the O2 arena. They sit around and sing with a few other people and the mood is generally optimistic. Their government is trying to protect them and it's not like this is really going to be all that dangerous (then why did they quarantine and _entire city_?) or take all that long (except they've been here almost two weeks) and they're sure it's going to be sorted soon (but the radio says they're doing the same to more cities now).

Then, of course, there's an outbreak in one of the centres. Apparently the disease crawls up on you; a regular headache, a bit of dizziness, exhaustion and then boom one day you wake up a zombie. Or rather, you don't, since you won't really be in there. At least they're not violent though, just confused and uncontrolled. They can be contained easily and it's what they have the military for, isn't it? So obviously the first one to go violent and aggressive is one with a gun strapped to his shoulder.

If he gets through this, Harry is going to need so much therapy if he ever hopes to close his eyes and not see the bullet-hole riddled body of a fourteen year old girl he'd been chatting to two days before ever again. He freezes when it happens. Which, considering that it happens no ten feet from him, is really not a good thing. Harry is pretty sure the only reason he's alive is because Louis was there to save the day. He remembers it only in weird flashes, almost like ramped action sequences, but through a haze like he was stoned at the time.

He remembers Louis' fingers wrapped around his wrist and pulling him along. He remembers Liam pushing Niall and Zayn into motion and the five of them speeding down corridors. Most people went for the exits, so it was almost impossible to get out, but Louis had them all hold on to each other and waded through the crowd almost like it parted in front of him. He remembers the noise and the panic and the way his head kept replaying that girl's death.

\---

The disease is transmitted through blood-to-blood contact only, although swallowing infected blood or ingesting it otherwise isn't smart either. None of this biting nonsense though. They hole up on the twelfth floor of an office building after The Escalation. A few others had the same idea and Louis organises their slightly larger group with the unspoken leaders of the other groups. There are two little boys among them, six and eight. Harry plays with them and puts on a brave face and tells them fairy tales and tries not to think of Lux, darling little Lux who he's not heard of since before The Escalation and who he definitely doesn't keep having visions of as brutally murdered or - maybe worse - a mindless little rage demon.

He definitely doesn't spend almost every evening crying against Louis' chest.

\---

Harry has killed two people. Only one of them was a zombie. He thinks.

\---

Harry's entertaining Zach and Elijah while Louis and Liam are out with a few of the others to find them some food, carrying Elijah around on his back and making airplane noises while his older brother follows them with Godzilla noises, when their mother comes to collect them for supper. He ruffles both their hair and sends them off with her, only noticing about five minutes later that Elijah left his jacket behind. The scene he finds when he goes to give it back will probably show up in his nightmares right alongside that girl from the O2's body. Katie is pressing pillows into her sons' faces, tears streaming down her cheeks, wailing about how mummy just wants to protect them from the evil out there and that this'll be for the better and they'll all see each other soon. He doesn't think, he just grabs her and wrenches her off the boys, throwing her to the side. Harry's so busy trying to calm Elijah and Zach when they cling to him he doesn't even notice that she's stumbling over to them until Elijah spots her and lets out a terrified shriek. They scramble behind him when Harry whirls around to face her and pushes them behind himself. He looks for the tell-tale signs in her, the unsteady gait, the slurred speech or lack of it completely, but she's lucid. She moves as gracefully as ever. She's not infected. She's mad.

"Come with mummy, boys," she says. "We'll all go see grandma and grandpa and daddy."

Harry wants to cry and scream and kick and throw up when he realises that these boys will basically be orphans if she doesn't get herself back together.

"Katie," he says, trying to keep his voice soothing. "You don't want to do that."

"Don't tell me what to do," she says, a mean glint in her eyes as they shift from her boys cowering behind Harry to him. "You've been trying to take my boys from me for weeks."

"What?"

"You think you're a better mum than me, don't you?"

"No, I-"

"You're not. I'll protect them. I'll make sure they're safe. Come on, boys, we'll go somewhere no one can hurt us."

"I don't want to go, mummy," Elijah says, quietly, clinging to Harry's jeans pocket and jacket, but Zach makes to step forward and Harry automatically puts out a hand to stop him, if he actually wants to go. Zach stays still and Katie sees and lets out a wail that chills Harry to the bone, before she flings herself at him. Before he knows it he's shouting for someone to help, doesn't understand why no one's here yet and tries wrestling her off. She claws at his hair and face and clothes, tearing open a gash in his cheek and it's the sudden fear that surges through him at having an open wound in an environment where that little scratch might very well be his death sentence that makes him push her off forcefully. She stumbles back and falls and there's a sickening crack as her head hits the wall. Katie manages to push herself upright from the floor and lean against the wall, but there's a trickle of red down her neck behind her ear. Harry is frozen in place, ears ringing.

"Mummy?" Zach says worriedly. Katie opens her arms with a smile and Harry doesn't stop the boys from rushing to her. She kisses them each on the forehead and ruffles their hair.

"Mummy's going to see daddy now. You boys stay with Harry. He'll look after you. Be good for him, yeah?"

They both nod and she pulls them into a hug again gently. Her eyes rest on Harry, not judging, not thanking, just watching him and then her mouth twitches as if she goes to smile but instead her arm falls from around Elijah.

"Mummy?" he whispers. Harry takes the few steps towards them and gently pulls them away.

"What happened to mum, Harry?" Zach asks, clinging to Harry and staring at their mother's lifeless body.

"Your mum was sick and she had an accident," he says, throat closing up around the words. He pulls them in tighter and lets them cuddle up to him.

"Is she going to be okay?" Zach asks, while Elijah is already hiccoughing sobs into his shoulder.

"Harry?"

"No, darling. She's not."

\---

He's on a food run with Louis when movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention. A man in his mid-thirties, built like one of their former body guards is barrelling towards them. Harry doesn't think about it, just grabs Louis and pulls and shouts, "RUN" because there is no way they're going to win this on strength. They fly down the streets, past abandoned cars and empty houses and London has never looked so creepy and in a small part of his mind, Harry notices how his absurd life has taken a turn for the even more absurd and switched from a rags-to-riches kind of story to a zombie apocalypse movie.

When they round a corner, heavy steps pounding behind them, and Louis slips and falls, Harry laughs hysterically. He's terrified of himself in this moment, but he can't stop grinning even though he feels the tears sting in his eyes and he turns around, widens his stance and grabs his golf club, even as Louis is getting back on his feet. He wouldn't have been quick enough and Harry pulls the club back and swings it like a baseball bat, hitting the man on the side of the head. He falls down like a sack of potatoes and Harry drops the club, the adrenaline making him shake. Louis picks it back for him and wordlessly puts his hand in between his shoulder blades when Harry falls to the floor and throws up.

He pours whiskey and honey over Louis' cut up hands - he would fall onto a rusty nail, wouldn't he - and makes him promise not to take his gloves off, trying valiantly to ward off the nightmares of losing everyone he loves. Zach and Elijah never let go of him, even in their sleep.

\---

The worst part is the waiting. There's no mad rush from place to place, no comical deaths by dropping pianos onto the undead. Just the sick awareness that none of these people are dead, they're just sick. They could be saved if everyone just managed to steer clear enough of them for long enough. It's like the longest, most tiring game of hide and seek ever with astronomically high stakes.

\---

It ends almost like it started. Abruptly, with the announcement of the discovery of an antidote and then slowly with people lining up at the check points to get clearance and leave the city to be with their loved ones for the first time in over two months. Too many people die the first three days of the new clearance points being in operation, having gotten careless or trampled in a hysteric mob trying to get out. A few of their group have split off to try their luck but Louis makes them stay and wait it out.

"What's a few more days, eh?"

\---

Cardiff and Edinburgh are cleared the same day. Manchester two days after. London obviously takes longest. Two weeks after the clearance points open, a little more than three months afte this whole thing started Louis has them all go for it. They pack their few things, Liam carries Zach and Harry carries Elijah and they make their way through the deserted streets for what they all wish is the last time. Harry explains that he called his mum to pick them up if he can't be with them at some point to Elijah and Zach and showed them pictures of her, having texted her pictures of them so they would recognise each other.

As expected, once they get to the clearance point, they're separated and put in solitary quarantine for days. Harry almost goes mad with worry.

\---

His mum comes to pick up Zach and Elijah, who get cleared before Harry, due to light scrapes on his knees where his jeans didn't make it after one too many fall.

\---

The cut on Louis' arm has festered and putrefied so he's kept the longest. There's talk of him possibly losing his hand at some point and alone in his little cell with the glass front Louis suddenly looks like a scared, broken, lost boy and not the fierce and protective almost super-human creature Harry has almost gotten used to. He sits down cross-legged in front of the glass and presses his palms up against is, Louis mirroring him on the other side. They lean their foreheads against the glass as well, shedding a few tears in mutual silence. There are no words for this anyway.

\---

Harry comes to visit Louis every day. Sometimes he brings Elijah and Zach with him. He tells Louis about the outside world and how it's rebuilding. How they've found out how the disease spread and how they're going to prevent it from happening again. He doesn't understand much of it, but he reports it anyway. When he closes his eyes at home - in his own bed, his soft, warm, safe bed (nothing is safe anymore) - he still sees Katie and the girl in the O2 and the man he bludgeoned and all the half-rotten corpses they've stumbled over and walked past. He doesn't think he'll ever really be okay.

But he gets up in the morning and he makes the boys a little more cheery every day and he goes to see Louis and he survives. He survived the zombie apocalypse, he's not going to let the aftermath take him down.

\---

"This is your bravery, Harry," Louis says to him one day on one of Harry's visits, seemingly out of the blue.

"You rebuild lives. You give and give and give to make sure that everyone is happy and optimistic and moving forwards, no matter how scared you are. You're like a gardener growing a tropical rainforest in a desert."

Harry's never thought of himself as brave. That's always been Louis' job. Then again, if anyone knows about courage, it would be Louis, so he supposes he'll take his word for it.

\---

Louis gets to keep his hand and, finally, is cleared and ready to leave the quarantine center. He's one of the last people still there. The first thing Harry does when Louis walks towards him with no glass barrier inevitably separating them is run his hands over his face and hair and arms and hands. He drinks in the feeling of his skin against his, the smell of him, the sight of him, the sound of his voice directly in his ear instead of through some sort of telecommunication device.

"Welcome home," he finally says. Louis smiles at him and leans against his body, breathing in his presence, lacing their fingers together. No one tells them to hurry. They have all the time in the world. Harry feels his mind settle for the first time in what feels like forever, even if it was barely a third of a year. Finally, senses full of Louis, Harry pulls back and Louis out to his car. No one cares about their still-linked hands. It's a good thing too, since Harry doesn't plan on ever letting go.

**The End**


End file.
